Unlike some years, I didn’t see any snow when I arrived at the old Hull Lifesaving Station.
“Hi Wayne—you bring the pontoons with you?” said Gary Piantedosi.
“Hi Gary, yeah, I got em, don’t leave home without em!”
“Getting breezy, be a little rough out there.”
“Yeah, well we’ve seen that before.”

I got the boat unloaded and moved the car. Back at the beach Gary was looking at my boat with a puzzled look on his face.
“Wayne, you got a skeg on your boat?”
Now I was puzzled. I have my homemade oversize skeg on my shell. It is strong enough that I often just set the boat on the beach, letting the stern rest on the skeg.
I looked at the stern of my boat. It was resting flat on the sand.
“Gary, the answer to that is yes and no. I can see the skeg, but it is bent over 90 degrees. It must be hanging on by the silicone. Damn, I’ve always put it down on the skeg before.”

After some mumbling and cursing, I was able to work the skeg back solidly into the skeg slot. I will jump ahead to say the skeg stayed with me.

I didn’t have the only pontoons that day. There was a Wintech 2x rowing shell with one seat fitted out for an adaptive rower. I saw a guy on crutches. Guess that was him. They had a pair of the Wintech pontoons, just like mine, attached to the rigging.

Starting Line Madness

The famous Snow Row start was the usual spectacle. Marvelous mayhem mixed with the mighty efforts of many merry men and women. The Le Mans start of the gigs and whaleboats does not fail to entertain. In the wake of this madness, the sliding seats and kayaks go off, then the surfskskiis.

When in Hull, do as the Hullans’ do. That is my only explanation as to why there is only 90 seconds between starts. It takes the last of the gigs that long to get turned around and started. There is no time to get into any kind of starting line for us sliders and kayaks. There were some boats, a double or two, about two hundred feet ahead of me. Other boats were still milling about all over the place, pointed every which way.
“Yup, surfskiis go 90 seconds after we do.” I was telling Wesley Echols in his surfski.

“Just 90 seconds?”

 

BOOM goes the starting canon for my flight. I look around and see confusion.
“SLIDERS, Lets Go!” I yelled out. It had felt like I was the only one that was going to start.

Nowhere to Go

I had a pretty good start. I had adjusted the pontoons so that they were lower to the water than I usually have them. My boat was more stable like that. I started pulling hard on the oars. No worry about the chop and the wind. Nice full strokes. I pulled ahead of some, others pulled ahead of me.

My back was good. My knee was good. My fitness was a million erg meters ahead of the season before. Last year I skipped the Snow Row due to back problems. My Achilles heel this time was my tennis elbow.

“You have to row with a relaxed grip.” coach Marlene had instructed. I wasn’t feeling relaxed though. My right forearm got tight. The grip was hard to maintain. I let up on the pressure and slowed the stroke rate.

Current and wind skewed my course to port. My port pontoon dragged the water surface more than the starboard, dragging me more to port. I had to row right oar only sometimes to keep correcting my course. Right oar, wrong elbow. It was annoying

I was catching up to one of the big boats. It was a youth boat. A white and yellow double shell, an Alden I think, was catching up to me on my port side. They couldn’t quite pass me. They must have been annoyed that they couldn’t straighten out their course because I continued to have difficulty staying on course.

They got really close. I pulled hard on my port oar to stay clear. Then I looked to starboard at the stern of that big gig boat. Caught between a double and a gig!

“Hey, I got no where to go over here.” I yelled to the man and woman in the 2x. I had to stop rowing or hit the gig. I chose the former.

“Way enough” the woman in bow of the 2x yelled out. They stopped rowing. After the gig moved away, we got going again. I am sure the double was most happy to get around me and be rid of me!

Me and my pontoons. Photo by David Jones


Slap Happy Waves

Finally I got around to the back side of Sheep Island. That is where conditions got interesting. Ed McCabe had cautioned us at the captains meeting that the waves off the beam, shallow water, and big rocks would make for conditions to watch out for. Especially for us small boats.

I was happier than ever to have the pontoons. The waves were not huge. Under two feet pretty much. But they were steep. Slap happy. Slapping against the side of the boat and sending spray into the air and water into the cockpit. The automatic bailer would take care of the cockpit water. I wasn’t minding the spray. Too much else to think about.

In sculling, you generally try to keep even hand heights. That wasn’t working too good for me. One steep wave heeled me over to starboard so far that that my left oar handle seemed like it would hit me in the forehead. I thought to myself- “hey, maybe I can flip with the pontoons on!”

Right after that I noticed that mixed 2x out to my port side. They had stopped rowing.

“Hey, you guys OK? I yelled out. They didn’t hear me. They were busy bailing. Then I saw them swamp. I knew the waves had won the “water in, water out” duel.

A Zodiac safety boat was nearby, watching for just such a problem. I stopped rowing and waved to the Zodiac and gestured toward the distressed vessel. The people in the 2x were waving for attention. Rescue was soon at hand.

Surfing With No Waves

Ahead was the day marker, the last turn. Then the downhill run. Ed McCabe had told us to have faith in back of that island, that when we got to last leg, things would be going our way. Wind, waves and current. Downhill, downwind, and down to the last leg. Go wide here he had advised, and catch the current back to the beach.

It felt so good to get pointed back to the beach. Time to put blades to water and make up some time. Felt good to stretch out with long, solid strokes. No hands flying up in the air with every wave. This is living. This is why I love the open water. I wouldn’t have wished to be any where else, except maybe the finish line.

It got better and better. The current seemed to stretch the waves out. The 20 mph tailwind felt like 10 mph, since I was going with it. I went wide. Not so much because I remembered what Ed had said, but because I had turned around and spotted the pilings of the pier ahead. Turns out for a while I was headed for the wrong pier, off to my port side! This turned into dumb luck as I hit the current.

In rough water rowing, like behind the island, you are not always able push to your fitness level. When I got to the “easy” rowing, I was ready to put my million meter erg fitness to use. Combined with the flat water, tailwind and current, I went into hyper drive. Me and my boat were crusin’. It felt like surfing, like there was a little motor helping me out. There was no “checking” every stroke as you go back up the slide to take the next stroke. I passed some more boats.

Surfing with no waves is what it felt like.

I was surprised later on to hear some Surfski comments about not catching any runs. Even so, the surfskiis had the top three finishing times. At the captains meeting Ed had said:

“We have a separate start for the surfkiis this year. They tell me they are the fastest boats on the water. Would someone please prove them wrong!”

Not this year Ed. This year was “The Attack of the Killer Kickbuttskiis!”

Up ahead I saw Jim Gorman rowing in his 1x. I had been ahead of Jim until my awful course management issues had Jim and many others, getting ahead. I caught Jim not far from the finish. He had just zagged off course when I was about to pass him.

“heh Jim, which way are we heading here?” I yelled.

“You’re right” replied Jim.

I saw the finish buoy. Sprint time. I had enough adrenaline going that there was no pain from the effort.

“Bring it home Wayne!” I heard from Mark Allen, sitting in his Echo 1x near the finish.

Ski Trip

There was not a lot of hanging around and socializing for me this year. I got the boat loaded and the car packed. Back at the beach I saw that Gary had just landed his Alden Whitehall single. The Whitehall is a classic and seaworthy design. Heavy and relatively slow though.

“I should have taken the brown boat.” Gary was telling Jim.

 

“Hi Wayne, how did you do?” asked Jeff Nelson. Jeff was 1st for the sliders in his Echo 1x.

“Pretty good Jeff. Felt good anyway. On the home stretch it felt like the boat just wouldn’t stop. Like I had a little motor under the boat.”

“Yea, I felt that way too.” Jeff’s motor must have had more horsepower than mine. Jeff was telling me how he had seen one of the big boats flipped over. One of the open water sliding seat fours he thought.

“I couldn’t tell for sure. I could only see the bottom of it!” he said

I was worried that everyone was OK. There were fire engines and rescue vehicles that had arrived at the scene. Evidently everyone was OK. I am guessing there were concerns about hypothermia.

 

So I had finished ahead of some competitors, and behind others. I was feeling upbeat, not beat up, to use a phrase that had been a favorite of my mothers.

I had driven 200 miles from Norwalk. Now it was 190 miles to Ludlow, VT. My wife Bev and our friends Mike and the twins, Juliet and Jackie were at our family ski house at Okemo.

It felt good to be there after all the driving. Wine and cheese were waiting. Soon the sauna was put to good use.

Sunday morning we were at the mountain early. Got in some good skiing. The Snow Row and snow skiing on the same weekend! It’s a tough life, but somebody has to live it!

 

Long Live Open Water!
(and Skiing!)

Wayne Lysobey

3/26/11

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